In this episode, Teri-Denise continues her conversation with Daedalian Lowry, exploring the origins of his unique name and the importance of identity. The conversation delves into the origin of 'Daedalus' from Greek mythology and its real-world implications, weaving connections between ancient stories and modern lives, with a side of humorous anecdotes as well. It's time to strap on those beeswax wings and let the Sun feel your presence.

Mentioned This Episode

Website: Daedalus

Website: Art Happens Here - Dennis Preston, Pt. 1

Website: Art Happens Here - Dennis Preston, Pt. 2

Hello there.

This is Terry Denise, a Lansing Community College student and your host of Ripper in LCC Connect podcast where I interview others and ask about their unique efforts and connections in around and beyond the community of Michigan's capital city.

Hello.

Welcome back to Ripper.

I am your host, Terry Denise, also known as Tiden, and we are here again with Dadalion Lowry.

We are continuing a discussion that we were having beforehand and I really appreciate your time again to extend our.

You bet.

You should really encourage people to listen to the previous episode because that was so awesome.

You were so good.

Yes, awesome.

So actually, speaking of the previous episode, it was Kylie Minogue that did the locomotion in the 80s.

Bing, bing.

So we were both.

There's a correct bell somewhere on that key.

Somewhere.

There is.

I'll figure it out one day.

Yeah, we'll have to do that some other day.

So.

Yes, it's still.

It's training part.

Yes.

I am very excited about learning about the pads here.

So actually, to continue on where we left off, I was asking about your name and if it had an origin.

When I first met you, I kept thinking your name was Daedalius.

Oh, Daedalus or Daedalus.

Daedalus is typically how it would be pronounced.

Is it?

Okay.

And that's what is.

Yes, that is correct.

So do you want to know the story of how I got the name, or do you want to know the story behind the name?

Or both?

Yes, I want to know both.

To start out, though, because I was a theater kid and of course we had to know about mythology and everything like that.

Daedalus was one of the Greek.

Or Roman.

Yeah, it's out of Greek mythology.

So that was an inventor.

He was.

He was an inventor.

He very smart guy.

And I think what he's known most for is just being the father of

Icarus who flew too high towards the sun.

So as far as the name goes, my dad just wanted to give me a weird name.

Oh.

I mean, that's really just in a nutshell.

There you go.

As far as the name goes.

Yes, it's from Daedalus and it means intricate, ingenious, or complicated.

Yeah.

So apparently dad had some high expectations.

I definitely know that there's some ex girlfriends that would tell you I'm complicated.

Okay, there's that.

I think it's hilarious if you're not living up to some part of your name.

By the way, both my first name and middle name mean to reap in some form or fashion, so I literally sow what I reap.

Every day.

Is that the way it works?

And the show is called Ripper and also so Reaper Ripper.

Rip it apart.

Well, that's fair.

That's fair.

Okay, getting back to the story of Daedalus, I'm going to give you the abridged version.

Obviously, it goes in quite a bit deeper.

But like I said, Daedalian means intricate, ingenious, or complicated.

And in the case of Daedalus, he was an inventor.

Yes, he was an artist.

He was a lot of different things, but he's probably best known for being the father of Icarus.

Icarus.

Most people know the story of him flying too close to the sun to burn his way wings.

Most people don't really know the story behind why he was trying to fly to the sun.

And that was because him and his son Icarus were imprisoned in the labyrinth.

Inside the labyrinth was the Minotaur.

The Minotaur was, you know, the half man, half bull.

There's actually a story behind that that I could even go even deeper into.

I'm not going to, though.

But they had to escape the labyrinth.

So he took the feathers from the various birds that were on the island that the labyrinth was located in, and he built wings for him and his son Icarus.

And he told his son, don't fly too close to the sun, otherwise your wings will burn.

And if you fly too low to the sea, the salt will get in your wings and you'll drown.

But Icarus, being a very ambitious young man, wanted to touch the sun, so he tried to fly and touch the sun.

I never cared for that story.

I'm going to be honest with you.

I really don't.

I don't care for that story.

What's the moral of this story?

So basically, the Greeks are telling you, do not try to reach your dream, otherwise you're going to get burned and you're going to drown and fall into the sea and die.

I mean, really, really.

They're floating, so to speak, into the area of being too narcissistic, too godlike, maybe.

All right, I guess being so arrogant as a human to think that you could be anything beyond.

But see, I didn't.

I've never read it that way.

It does make sense.

You say it, I go, okay, okay, I can go with that.

But to me, it always felt like, you know, don't reach for your dreams.

You're just gonna burn.

So, you know, and maybe that's it.

Maybe my brain has never read it the right way or examined it in the right way.

And now that you've told me that.

Like, I'm just gonna go ahead and go a different route now.

Oh.

O.

Well, like the inventor of Daedalus.

You two are very multifaceted.

Was there any part of you growing up that were you told that story as a child?

No, I actually had.

I still have the dictionary that my dad found the name from.

Oh.

And that dictionary has, like, little summaries of stories about different Greek mythology figures and Roman.

It's an interesting dictionary in that it's a lot different than.

Well, we don't really have a lot of dictionaries these days anymore.

But anybody that has seen a dictionary, it's not just about words.

It has these little stories in there.

So I have that.

And that was the basis of how I knew about my name for the longest time.

And then eventually I got curious because I wanted to read more about it.

So I would search out books and find information about it.

Nobody really told me, actually, as I think about it.

It wasn't like my dad ever told me or my mom or anybody like that.

No.

No.

Okay.

So you went out and pursued to find out about the origin of your name.

Yes.

Cause it's weird.

Yeah, it is.

It's different.

And with that, did you find yourself trying to live up to this mythological character at all, or were you inspired?

We'll just say that.

I mean, you know, I didn't build wings or anything like that.

I suppose the artist side of me, I suppose, has.

But then again, I didn't really pursue art on a constant basis.

I still do things, but it isn't like.

I think the person that comes to my brain immediately is Dennis Preston.

He's somebody I admire, appreciate his artwork, and he is phenomenal.

But this is a guy that, when I see him, you can tell he has just fully embraced his artistic side.

Because if you run into him someplace, you can run into him at a coffee shop or whatever he's drawing.

Yes.

That's what he does.

And it's just a part of him.

First of all, Dennis Preston.

Yes, I agree.

What an amazing local artist that we have here who is well known around the world now.

Oh, yeah.

So.

And he does a lot of caricatures, I believe There's.

I don't know if they used his stuff as a.

For the basis of Monopoly.

It seems like the way and style he drew kind of adapted to the local Monopoly games that you see, kind of with a cityscape and everything like that.

I don't know that I've seen them.

I'll have to Take a look.

It reminded me of Denis Preston.

Not necessarily the kind of caricature look, but just the idea of putting a whole cityscape in together here in just one drawing and everything like that, and encompassing many, many different characteristics of focus into one setting.

Yeah, yeah.

Dennis would often, like you said, in coffee shops, he would draw on napkins and just hand them out to people all day long, just doodling and everything like that.

And oddly enough, that goes back to the same reason why I like, even though we talked about that in the first part, it was the reason that I love doing what I'm doing here at LCC Connect.

It introduces people to a lot of folks that I feel like people should know about.

Denny Preston's definitely one of those people in the area and he's actually been on, I think, a couple of different of our podcasts, but the one that comes to mind is Art Happens Here.

Bruce Mackley interviewed him and he did a two parter on that.

Nice.

And really some great conversation on there.

And we'll make sure to include it in the show notes.

I was going to say.

Yeah, please check that out.

And thank you for mentioning that.

Along with that, I actually disagree with the statement that you said that.

I do believe that your artistry comes through every day, especially when you are here working on editing and producing and making sure the production notes get in and whatnot.

This is part of your art.

Everything that you do.

I mean, I appreciate you saying that.

You know, it's funny because Bruce Mackley's the one that said to me at one point that the audio editing I do, there's an artistic factor to it, and I agree with him.

But not a lot of people would know that because usually if you are doing a good job in your artistry of audio editing, the goal is to make sure that nobody knows you're there.

That's the best way I can put it, is just the better job you've done in your audio editing, the more people will not notice that you edited it.

Exactly.

So it's a weird kind of thing where it's like, yeah, I know there's some artistry to it, but most people don't think of it that way.

Well, I guess you're finding out different ways to prospectively see things today.

I suppose that's true.

So, all right.

Were you.

Apparently that's gonna be your role in my life.

Thanks.

So while you were a bulldog, I'm just gonna change trajectories here.

Were you into sports or anything?

I was not.

I was Not a huge sports person.

In fact, I joke about it often, but there's a lot of truth to the fact that the only way you will see me running is if somebody's chasing me with a chainsaw.

Oh, my goodness.

I don't like running.

I don't like doing that kind of stuff.

Doesn't mean I don't enjoy sports.

Cause I do golf, I do bowl, but they're more leisurely sports than I like to do.

I do like riding my b.

But, yeah, I was never into sports.

What I did do, though, is I was very much, you know, I guess the same person I've always been.

I used to emcee the talent shows, so that was my thing in high school.

And I also did what they called forensics, which was not what most people think of forensics.

It was more like a performance kind of a thing.

So you would take, like, little clips of plays and you would act them out.

That sounds like a lot of fun in and of itself.

I had a blast.

So only emceeing, or were you also running, like, production side as well?

Back then, it was just mainly about the emceeing.

Just being in front of a crowd, being goofy and silly, which is.

Yeah, I was really good at it back then.

All right, well, it does seem like you did get a lot of fitness in.

You had mentioned previously in the other episode, Part one, that you danced, that you are a dancer.

All right.

You enjoy dancing, fine.

If you want to call that exercise, call that exercise.

That is a lot of exercise.

That's how a lot of people stay fit.

In fact, were you ever, like, a B boy or anything?

I was not.

No.

I was not.

No.

Definitely wasn't like a B boy.

But what I did, like, was shows like, In Living Color, where they did the dancing.

And it was in the Fly Girls.

Yes.

Yeah.

So JLo.

So, like, there was.

There was a group of us that would go to the bar, and we would try to do these, like, synchronized dances.

So.

So, okay, that's kind of what I did.

But that was back in college, too.

So in this.

So, okay, we did this as well growing up.

I.

In the church is what.

But we had our little, you know, factions and little groups that we would.

Everybody would split apart in, and our little youth services.

And some of us.

I was a part of a team.

Our moms called us the Mouseketeers, I believe.

So we would put together choreographed sessions where we would put together something and, I don't know over.

If people don't know who Carmen Is they should check him out.

Carmen.

Carmen.

Carmen Carvin.

Carmen.

Actually, one of his videos were featured on Red Letter Media, that podcast, in whatever faction it was, it was very hilarious to see that in my later years pulled out of the vault of sorts.

But we would dance to like very religious related, secular sounding music so we could put together choreographed dances and everything like that and present them to the other fellow youth and everything like that.

But it was fun for us because we would go to like.

So my understand.

Was it more in the classical dance

kind of some of that stuff.

And by that I mean like ballet kind of.

Yeah, no, actually we were doing more of like very hip hop kind of.

Okay, yes.

All right.

Because we were watch, you know, whatever faction of In Living Color we could get away with watching.

Right.

Or secular anything.

It was all about, you know, club MTV back in the day.

I mean, very.

I mean, one of my other nicknames is Downtown Terry Brown, of course.

Very, very, very, very.

Well, what, what was the one other.

Well, Wubby, Wubby or something like that.

Wubby, Wubby.

Yeah, that's right.

Downtown Julie Brown would always say and everything like that.

Of course, one of my inspirations, throwing

some people on a nostalgia chain here.

So very, very much into modern dance, even including kind of cheerleading things into that.

So I get the choreographing back during that time.

And of course Hammer coming out, like you had mentioned previously, MC Hammer being a thing.

It was huge.

I don't think people really, really today understand the kind of legendary status this man put on for everybody to enjoy.

The kind of money that went into this man's work and artistry that he would put out for everybody to watch and emulate.

So yes, choreographed dancing was a huge, huge part of everything.

You look at the Laker Girls and like the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders and all this stuff was such a pinnacle moment, I believe, right back in the 90s,

late 80s, late 80s 90s.

Yeah.

And like I said, Rosie Perez is one of the mainstays.

She helped with the Lakers and within Living Color.

Yeah.

And then JLO was on Paul Abdul.

Paul Abdiel, Yes.

Of course.

Paul Abdul was one of the Lakers cheerleaders.

So we're.

So you guys were watching the same thing that we were.

We were just younger than you at Miss you.

We would watch what certain people would put together.

If you were in a different frat or something like that, some of the sororities would put things together or just whenever.

If you were out at a Gus Macker thing, I don't know Me.

For me, it was just me and a couple of, like, we had three of us, four of us, four of us.

That we would just go to the bar and just kind of come up with some sort of dance thing.

I didn't do it a lot, though, so it was.

No.

And honestly, I was probably, out of the four of us, the one that was the least involved, so.

Okay.

But they were really awesome at it, and I just kind of hooked on at one point and went, yeah, I'll join and do this.

And so we did it for a little while, but.

So you would just literally go to the club and it was like, it's on.

Yeah, we would just dance because the nightlife is so different now compared to when it was back then, in that you could go to a lot of different dance clubs, but really they don't exist like they used to anymore.

You would literally dance at a dance club.

You're kidding me.

Yes.

No, that's what we would do.

It's crazy.

We'd go into a dance club and then the four of us would do this kind of routine.

You wouldn't just sit there and do, like, little stints for Instagram or anything and that's it.

Oh, no, TikTok.

We all used to talk to each other in person, too.

Yeah.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Would you even, like, dance with another person and it would be okay?

That would happen.

Oh, my goodness.

Scary thoughts.

Would you ever have dance offs like in Dooley?

I did not.

The others did.

They did.

So there were actually.

I was not that confident of my ability.

No, but you would do splits.

I don't understand.

Again, I was ridiculous.

That's all I know.

So were you actually coordinated?

Yes.

Okay.

I mean, I could dance.

You were told you can dance, basically, and you had enough confidence to be out there and do it.

Do you still go out and I'll dance.

I'm not, like, huge into it, but I will dance from time to time if the mood should hit me.

Okay.

Is there footage of you anywhere?

No, there's probably not.

No.

You were quick.

On that note, I've burned or destroyed all footage of me dancing.

So when you say flailing about, it's a coordinated flail.

I'm very stuck on this right now, by the way.

You are very stuck on this a lot longer than I intended for you to go.

So.

Yes, back then.

These days, my body does not move like it did back then, so you're not going to see the coordination quite happening as much.

It's not as lively.

I still Move now.

I do more of the, hey, shuffle kind of a thing.

You know the old man shuffle?

Yeah, kind of like the old man shuffle.

I get.

Yeah, I get some of that.

It's a fair statement.

And I'm.

By old man shuffle, I mean I do old man shuffle myself.

Like what?

So just one more thing about the dancing.

Any particular other styles?

In my brain, I'm hearing cnc, Music Factory.

But were you out at any other, like, kind of concerts or events or beyond Club.

Club music.

Well, here's.

Here's the other thing about me.

I do have an eclectic taste in music.

But I will tell you, back then, and even still to this day, I am a heavy metal fan.

Oh.

So the concerts that I went to, I had limited disposable income back then, which meant that if I was going to go to a concert, I wanted it to be metal concert, because that's what I really loved.

Gotcha.

Okay.

Which is funny because now, as I look back, late 80s and early 90s, it didn't matter if you went to see Metallica or Snoop Dogg, whoever.

It didn't matter.

25 bucks is pretty much what you would pay for tickets to go to a concert.

Oh, gosh.

Every time.

And now it doesn't exist.

And I feel terrible that it's that way.

Where was I going with all this?

Just different kinds of music that you're into.

We were talking about something.

Oh.

Cause you were asking me about going and dancing at shows.

Yeah.

Well, again, if you go to a Metallica show, threshing all around.

That's why I was asking you.

Well, I will say I would get in the mosh pit.

Okay, sweet.

So I did that kind of stuff.

All right.

Which makes sense for the kind of

flailing, which is weird because it's completely different than going to the nightclub and dancing.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, that makes sense.

So you were getting into the pit and everything.

Did you ever get into the big walls or anything like that?

Were you ever.

Yeah, yeah.

We would do the Lollapalooza.

That got kind of ridiculous.

You were at Lollapalooza.

I'd have to have you back on again because I'm going to have to ask you many questions about Lollipop.

It was an interesting time in that I remember it was at a particular facility.

I'm not going to name the facility, but back then they actually turned off the water and it was extremely hot that day.

And they got in huge trouble for that.

Oh, my gosh.

That's terrible.

What were the last three shows that you've been to.

My tastes have changed again.

And when I go to a show, first of all, I don't really want to spend a lot of cash.

Like, I absolutely wanted to go see Elton John in his last tour.

And then I found out that the most inexpensive seat I could get was like $300 for nosebleed.

I couldn't justify that.

The last show I actually went to see was Brad Sherwood and Colin Mochery from Whose Line Is It Anyway?

So that's what I do, is I tend to go to more comedy shows than I do anything else now.

Okay.

Doesn't mean that I haven't gone to other ones.

And I can't tell you what the other two shows I've been to, But I went to the Winery Dogs at one point.

They're not metal, they're rock.

Okay.

I went to Def Leppard at one point.

Def Leppard, Awesome.

Most of the time, I think when I go to shows, it's usually going to be local.

Any particular one off shows that you have tickets to or anything?

Nope, nope.

Nothing set in.

You know, I want to give you a lengthy answer, but I got nothing for you here.

Were you ever into Ministry?

No, no.

Ministry is going to be coming around again.

Oh, Ministry.

The band.

Ministry of the band.

Well, I thought you meant, like the profession.

Yeah.

Are we looking into getting into the Ministry soon?

I am the band, yes.

Well, actually, I mentioned Lollapalooza.

I saw them at Pine Knob.

In fact, I've seen them three times now.

And the one time at Pine Knob, it was kind of interesting.

Al Jurgensen, the singer.

Uncle Al?

Yep, Uncle Al.

He actually had to stop the show after they played Thieves because what happened was people started picking up sod, you know, big sod.

Grass.

Yeah.

What do you call it?

Sides of grass.

Sod grass.

You are correct.

Started picking up sod and throwing it all over the place.

The place was just like going nuts.

And he stopped after that first one.

He said, you know what?

Y' all need to stop doing this.

You need to stop throwing it, you know, because he's getting hit with sod, you know, by any means.

I get it.

He's up on stage, you're getting hit with, like, big things of grass.

It's not enjoyable.

No.

Also, when that gets into your instruments,

he stopped the show.

Said, either you guys stop or I'm going home.

Doesn't matter me.

Either way, I'm getting paid.

So that was one time I saw him.

Very last time I Saw him probably wasn't more than five years ago, I don't know.

But I saw poor Uncle Al once again in Grand Rapids.

And I say poor because again, he had to stop the show.

No, because people were throwing beer cans and he got hit with a can of pbr.

No way.

And it was the same thing where he's like, you know what?

I'm getting paid either way.

You know, either you stop throwing stuff or I'm going home.

Now, he used some more explicit words that I can't use.

Yes.

The funny part is he goes.

And the worst of it is, you threw a PBR at me.

If you're gonna throw a beer at me, at least throw a quality beer at me.

Oh, my gosh.

So anyway, three times I've seen him, but two out of the three, he had to stop the show.

That's disappointing.

But also, it is a metal show and it gets ridiculous.

It does.

But at least the crowd was motivated.

Yeah.

I mean, the song is a pretty hype song.

So, Yeah, I don't have a lot of stompers going at it.

A lot of Riverheads and whatnot.

Industrial kids that are into that.

So, yeah, Ministry is.

The reason why I asked is because Ministry is currently on tour, they're reaching back into their old collection.

A particular album titled With Sympathy, which.

Is this the one?

This is like old school.

This is one of the most.

Al Durgenson hated this album for so many years because it was traumatic for him to record and he didn't have a lot of say and you can read books and.

I mean, that's before they incorporated more to the metal sound though, right?

Yes, and before.

It's kind of like Trent Reznor with his first nine Inch Dales album, Pretty Hate Machine.

Completely sounds different than what you're gonna hear on all the others.

Most definitely.

Yeah.

And as the technology came around too, there are a lot of different sounds and different unique ways of being able to express through using these next level synthesizers and factions and everything that everybody started to incorporate into what they were using as well as the way technology, recording technology as well.

So things did start to sound different within the studios themselves.

And they are going to be using some songs from there and regenerating them in a different way.

Okay.

And playing them live.

Al finally broke about his hate for that era and everything.

So what happened was that he saw some band over in LA covering with Sympathy, the, like, whole album, and it changed his perspective.

Perspective.

Yeah.

It seems like, you know, there's a lot of changing perspectives that we've got going on here.

We'll have to definitely pay attention and see if I can hear it when it comes out.

It's a great.

Most definitely.

So with that, though, I did want to ask you about King diamond, but we are pressed for time here.

Okay, but did you ever go and see any Merciful Fate or King Diamond?

I did not ever see King diamond in concert.

And I'll be honest with you, I never will.

No, no.

I never grew to care for his.

That's okay.

One day you'll come around.

The falsetto is just a little too much for me.

His stage performances and antics are one of the best I've seen live.

He really takes opera to another level.

I will keep that in mind, and maybe I'll look up some stuff and watch as long as I can.

You know, you've got to go with a lot of these guys and artists and everything.

They.

They have this mythology about them and there's a lot of lore just like you, Dalian.

So maybe one day you'll.

It'll all work out.

It'll coalesce and it'll all combine.

Maybe.

All right, well, thank you once again for coming on.

I definitely have to have you back on to release some more stories of dancing.

Yeah, no more dancing.

No more dancing.

Well, we'll move on to other portions of life then.

But thank you so much for coming on.

Thanks for tuning in to Ripper.

You can find more more about this and other LCC Connect podcasts@lccconnect.com.